


Rewind back in slow motion. (the A-side)

by bellmare



Series: the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (hidden track) [1]
Category: Persona 3, Persona 4
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, M/M, Social Links, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-20
Updated: 2015-01-20
Packaged: 2018-03-08 09:54:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3204929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellmare/pseuds/bellmare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Between the six of them, the Velvet Room's getting crowded.</p><p>(Or, <i>Souji Wonders If Prolonged Exposure To The Velvet Room Turns People Blue.</i>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rewind back in slow motion. (the A-side)

**Author's Note:**

> Things to keep in mind: I envisioned Minato's Velvet Room digs to be [like](http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=manga_big&illust_id=24934589&page=8) [this](http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=manga_big&illust_id=24934589&page=9) (illust by [yuni](http://www.pixiv.net/member.php?id=72648)@pixiv. Please check them out!)

_Spring._

He used to dream about normal things. Normal things, meaning things like sleeping through alarms. Missing exams. Mirrors with no reflections, or mirrors that showed a multitude of figures, vaguely-perceived through dim glass. Dreams of running through an eerily silent tower, a green sky rushing past the windows. 

The key difference was that, those were easily interpretable. Messages from the subconscious. Fear of failure. Of losing, and of being lost. 

Nowadays, he dreams about people, mostly. Hazy, indistinct images. There's fog, too, and sometimes, he fears he'll never find his way out.

.

The Velvet Room feels crowded. Awkwardly so. Souji shuffles his feet and tries to meet all the eyes of the curious assortment of people around him. Igor. Margaret. Marie. A stranger, wearing blue.

He thinks, irrelevantly, that it's a good thing it's the Velvet Limousine, as opposed to the Velvet Convertible. 

.

Igor introduces the stranger as 'another assistant', offering no information beyond that. Souji draws in a breath, almost tasting the tension at the back of his throat. 

"What will he be assisting me with?"

Margaret turns away at the word. Assisting. Her head bows, and she closes her eyes. Souji wonders why she objects. She didn't when Marie came along, did she?

The newcomer neither replies, nor does he offer an introduction. He turns his head to gaze out of the window, and Souji follows his line of sight. There's nothing but fog, rolling silently past.

.

Days pass. Souji struggles with persona fusion. The rules of skill inheritance elude him and he emerges from a Velvet Room-induced fugue, disoriented and discouraged. Every moment spent in the Velvet Room fiddling with fusing a persona that can simultaneously heal as well as protect the party from Yukiko's shadow's pyrotechnics is another moment wasted. Another moment spent having to evade Chie's hurt and accusatory stares.

"... facing difficulties?" the new attendant asks, seemingly rousing himself from a deep reverie. Or maybe just feigning sleep to avoid talking to him; Souji doesn't know. It's the first time he's deigned to talk, let alone to Souji. His voice sounds strange -- from lack of use, maybe. Souji lifts a shoulder in a noncommittal shrug as he rifles through the personae he's gathered.

"Fuse Slime with Saki Mitama," the attendant says after several moments of watching Souji puzzle over what to do. Souji frowns and tries to clear his thoughts; his mind feels jumbled, like someone has rifled through it.

"Have the result inherit Red Wall and Media, then fuse with Apsaras."

.

The battle with Yukiko's shadow proceeds, admirably. This time, there is a minimum of charred flesh stuck to the hilt of his sword. It doesn't hurt to open his hand and spread his fingers -- not too much, anyways -- which is a marked improvement from the last time he attempted to confront the shadow. Souji makes a detour at the Velvet Room on his way home from Junes and finds it empty save for the nameless attendant.

"I wanted to thank you," he says without preamble. The attendant looks askance at him, half of his face shadowed by the sweep of his fringe. He studies Souji from beneath half-shut eyes, arms loosely crossed over his chest. "The persona you helped me create. I appreciate it."

"Good." The attendant turns away again and yawns into a hand, before lacing his fingers together and preparing to go back to whatever he was doing before. Which, Souji presumes, was having yet another nap. It isn't really a nap if he does it all the time, Souji thinks.

"I'm sorry, I never caught your name."

"I never gave it," the attendant says without opening his eyes. Like the Velvet Room, every detail about him seems to be blue. The uniform. His eyes. His hair. Souji clears his throat, wondering if the blue is contagious. Whether one day he'll walk out with blue clothes and blue hair and blue-grey eyes. How's he ever going to explain that to Dojima-san?

"Is there anything I can call you, at least?"

The attendant stays silent. So long that Souji debates just getting up and leaving.

"Marius," the attendant says at last, the syllables sounding strange and foreign in his mouth. 

.

The new attendant's reticence continues well into the next month. He never speaks to Souji, unless it's to offer guidance on persona fusion. Advice on skill inheritance. When not watching with vague amusement at Souji's stumbling efforts, he sleeps, head pillowed against the crook of his elbow or lolling back against the headrest.

"What do you think of the other people in the Velvet Room?" Souji asks Marie during one of their quieter outings. She shrugs as she blows on takoyaki to cool it down. 

"Stuffy," she says once she's finished chewing. " _Boriiing._ The Nose hardly talks to me, and Miss Priss just bosses me around."

"... I see. What about--"

"The Dormouse," Marie says with an air of decisiveness. 

"... do I want to ask?"

"From  _Alice in Wonderland._ " Marie pulls the book from her bag; Souji remembers, belatedly, going with her to the bookstore a few weeks ago. 

"Uh. Huh."

"All he does is sleep. When he's not, he never says anything."

"I see," Souji says again.

"But I kind of get a weird feeling from him, you know? I can't really explain it."

"Like you've met before?"

"No." She pauses, then adds, "stupidface" as an afterthought. There's no offense meant, and Souji takes none. It's just the way Marie is. 

"It's more like, a sort of ...  _feeling_. Like we're sort of the same. It's creepy."

.

Marius asks him for strange things. Scraps of shadows, plundered from the Midnight Channel. Lanterns. Reins. Rusted keys. Scrolls with arcane script crawling along their crumbling lengths. Crystallised geode fragments. Knick-knacks, for which he would have no use for in the Velvet Room.

"Please bring me a pair of headphones."

"Headphones?" Souji wonders what there is to listen to in the Velvet Room. As the deadline for the request approaches, he ends up asking Yosuke where he buys his headphones, and accompanies him to Okina City one weekend.

"Didn't know you were looking for a pair of cans, partner."

Souji shrugs as he browses through boxes. "It's for a qu-- for someone."

He leaves the store with a pair of blue headphones; not as bulky or specialised as Yosuke's, because he doesn't know what sort of specifications Marius is looking for. Or whether that kind of thing even matters.

"You got blue ones," Marius remarks when Souji hands over the box. 

"I thought it'd fit in with the decor."

"It's a nice colour." He peels open the box and loops the headphones around his neck, fingers lingering over the rims. 

"Matches your outfit," Souji says. "Really brings out the colour of your eyes."

.

_Summer._

"Take me to the beach."

It's a hot summer's day and Souji's got nothing else to do. The attendant watches as Souji fills up his scooter at the gas station, hands tucked in his pockets.

"Is this a date?" Souji asks, half-jokingly.

The corners of Marius' mouth quirk into a faint smile. "It is if you want it to be."

There are many answers Souji expects -- mostly along the line of 'I don't care' or 'whatever' if he's fortunate; bland silence if he's not. "I ... well, yeah," is the most articulate response he manages.

The ride to the beach is silent, punctuated by the screaming of gulls. Marius rests his chin on the curve of Souji's shoulder, cheek against the side of his neck. This probably isn't what Yosuke had in mind when he proposed the 'up close and personal' scheme. 

Souji's not surprised if the attendant has gone straight to sleep. "So much for taking the scenic route," he grumbles under his breath and checks to make sure that his passenger's still secure.

"Why the beach?" Souji asks when they arrive.

"It feels ..." Marius frowns and laces his fingers behind his back, gazing out at the water. "... familiar."

A heat haze hangs low over the ocean. Souji feels sweat prickling at the back of his neck. 

"Isn't it uncomfortable?" he asks.

"Hm?"

"The outfit. It's summer. You're in a  _peacoat_."

"Ah." The attendant's shoulders lift in a shrug. The wind plucks at his hair and he raises a gloved hand to keep his fringe down, squinting against the glare of the sun. It's the first time Souji's seen his face fully unobscured. "I don't care. Doesn't matter, anyway."

Silence falls between them. Souji kicks off his shoes and settles down by the water's edge, watching as seawater eddies around his toes.

"Do you know why it's called the sea of the soul?" Marius asks after a long time. He watches dispassionately as the water laps at the soles of his shoes, not bothering to shift to drier ground.

Souji huffs out a breath and drags a hand across his forehead. "No. Why?"

"Because there's so much of it left unseen. Unexplored. There is more potential that lurks beneath its surface, and yet we can only hope to begin to define it. The same is true of souls. Of the collective unconsciousness. In the end, the Velvet Room becomes a shelter for the drifters, lost amidst the flotsam."

Souji turns to look at the attendant. Sunlight glints off of the edges of Marius' headphones. He thinks of Marie, lost without her memories. A drifter, snagged by the push and pull of the tide and sheltered within a cove that exists between dreams and reality.

"And what about you? Are you a drifter as well?"

Marius smiles humourlessly. "I don't know."

.

Sometime in the middle of July, a man visits. He has amber eyes -- the yellow of old gold. He looks like Margaret.

"Master. Sister," the man says. Margaret gazes steadfastly ahead, giving no indication she's heard. "I ... I must apologise."

"Theodore," Igor says. "Please sit."

The man sits. Souji shifts uneasily. The six of them -- Igor, Margaret, Marie, Theodore, Marius, himself -- regard one another over cut crystal goblets and bottles of liquor. Souji notices, irrelevantly, that some of the alcohol is whiskey. Blue label. The contents of others are blue through pale glass, with the words  _Bombay Sapphire_  on the tags.

"Who's this?" Souji asks at last, when there aren't any more bottles left to examine.

"A former attendant of the Velvet Room," Margaret says. "And also my foolish younger brother."

"Nice to meet you," Souji says. Theodore inclines his head slightly, then turns back to Igor and Margaret, fingers clenched in his lap.

"I realise you are unhappy with ... with Elizabeth's course of action," Theodore begins after another lengthy silence. "She was ... perhaps a little hasty when it came to testing out alternate solutions."

For the first time, Souji hears a note of anger in Margaret's voice. "And you dare show your face here after failing to dissuade her?"

Theodore looks away. "Sister, you know as well as I do that dissuading Elizabeth is ... an impossibility. Particularly when I am the one petitioning her to reconsider her actions."

"Where were you these past few months?"

Theodore's silence is answer enough. "I'm sorry," he says again, refusing to meet anyone's eyes. When he leaves, he steps out into the fog and Souji cranes his head to watch as he departs, a blue figure engulfed by the emptiness.

.

"So, what's your deal?" Souji asks.

Marius gazes at him sidelong and rolls the can of TaP soda slowly between his hands. Today they're at the Shopping District at the attendant's behest. It's raining heavily, and Souji's umbrella is barely enough to cover the both of them. As they meander through the district, Souji tries to ignore the curious stares towards his blue-swathed companion. Marius, in turn, pointedly ignores the queries of the more straightforward gawkers. 

Souji has found Marius' silence to have different meanings; a subtle nuance that shifts according to the expression in his eyes, or the curvature to his mouth. This time, he interprets this silence as an invitation to continue.

"You're searching for something," he says, popping the tab on his can. 

"All who find themselves in the Velvet Room are searching, in one form or another," Marius replies. It's not really an answer. They draw to a halt in front of Aiya's and for the first time, something akin to interest flares in Marius' eyes.

"The Rainy Day Beef Bowl Special ... ?"

"I don't think you'd want to--"

"I'd like to try it," Marius says and steps from the shade of the umbrella before Souji can stop it. Souji curses inwardly as he follows, managing to step right in the centre of a puddle. Rainwater sloshes against his shoes and trousers; by the time he folds the umbrella and follows Marius inside, the attendant has already seated himself at the counter. 

They both order Rainy Day Beef Bowl Specials. As they wait, Marius removes his gloves and sets them on the counter beside him. There are old scars on his fingers; on the backs of his hands; on his knuckles. They're pale with age, almost faded on his skin. Some are like Souji's -- thin, fine nicks and scratches; others are longer and branching, trailing up into his shirtcuffs.

Souji regrets his decision when the result of his folly arrives in front of him. To his right, Marius separates his chopsticks with a clean  _snap_.

"Thanks for the meal."

They eat in silence; Souji listens to the trickle of rain down drainpipes and against the windowpanes. The contents of his bowl don't seem to diminish. Before long, his pace slows until he's slouched dismally low over his bowl, chopsticks hovering in the air, chin propped against his knuckles.

"Are you going to finish that?"

"Sorry?" Souji turns slowly, rousing himself from his beef bowl-induced reverie. Marius' bowl is empty. Marius smiles faintly, the corners of his eyes narrowing in amusement.

"The consequence of your ill ambition would be paying 3000 yen. I'm offering you a simple solution. Surely there are other things you'd much rather spend your hard-earned funds on."

Souji watches without comment as Marius helps himself to the rest of Souji's beef bowl. And then proceeds to order a ramen set. With extra condiments. 

"I suppose it makes sense. You don't really get anything to eat in the Velvet Room, do you?"

Marius picks up a sliver of bamboo shoot with his chopsticks, gazing pensively at it as though it was the one that addressed him. "Time does not really exist in the Velvet Room, nor does the concept of hunger. I ..." Here, he pauses and a different expression flicks momentarily across his face. It almost resembles an emotion; Souji's surprised at its suddenness. Its intensity. He has no idea how to read it.

"I think eating was something I enjoyed ... before--before--" Marius' fingers clench around the chopsticks; he sets them down, then presses his knuckles against his forehead. When he speaks his voice is rough; tremulous with a quality Souji cannot identify. "Before this," he finishes, speaking into his hands.

"I'm sorry," Souji says, though he doesn't know what he's apologising for.

.

"I apologise for the last time."

Souji shrugs as he hefts a sword at Daidara's store. It's high time he upgraded his equipment, now that the enemies are getting stronger. "It's fine. I'm sorry if it brought back some bad memories."

"Therein lies the crux of the matter." Marius selects a sword and draws it from its scabbard. The blade arcs smoothly through the air and stops inches before Souji's throat. He swallows and watches as the attendant steps back and sheaths the sword in a single, fluid motion. "Memories."

"So, you're like Marie."

"Perhaps." Marius replies and turns to inspect an axe, its blade intricately tooled. Souji moves cautiously out of range as the attendant lifts it, then rests it on his shoulder. "We in the Velvet Room are constantly on a journey to find ourselves. You are not an exception. Its attendants, too, are no exception."

Souji picks up a different sword, running his thumb experimentally over the sharpened edge. "What do you remember?" 

"Fragments. It seems I was a person who liked to eat."

"Wow, I never knew," Souji replies sardonically. Marius smirks.

"I think I remember why, though."

"Oh?"

When Marius turns to him, half of his face lies thrown into shadow. His eyes look feverish and overbright in the gloom. "To fill the void."

"Is that a joke?"

Marius smiles, a secret, half-smile. "You tell me."

.

_Autumn._

Sometimes, Souji notices how Marius stops talking like a Velvet Room attendant -- stops talking like Margaret, or Theodore -- and how he sounds more like a normal person. Usually, whenever these instances occur they're during small, throwaway moments -- like when they eat. Or when they're tanding at the banks of the Samegawa, watching the sunset.

It's jarring.

.

Theodore visits again at the middle of September.

"Elizabeth refuses to return," he says without preamble. "When I appealed to her to reconsider, she told me she didn't want to. And that she was enjoying herself, becoming an abstract concept and becoming the Seal. When I left, it seemed she had perfected obliterating  _it_  in a single blow. She then told me her goal was to defeat it without using her personae, and with all her skills sealed and her capabilities debilitated."

Tension stiffens the curve of Margaret's spine. "Tell her that if she chooses not to return soon, I will bring her back myself."

Theodore's eyes flick guiltily to Marius, then back to Margaret. "Sister, you know you cannot do that. Elizabeth would never want it."

And, for the first time, sadness settles onto Margaret's shoulders. "I know," she says quietly with something that sounds, to Souji, like anguish. "I know."

They gaze silently at each other for several minutes; Souji feels like he's intruding, a voyeur to a something painful and private. 

Theodore breaks eye contact first. "I'll convey your regards to her."

.

Margaret starts assigning him requests of her own, after that. Instructions to fuse specific personae, with specific skills. Perhaps Marius feels her discomposure acutely, or perhaps he's grown bored with giving Souji hints. For these requests, he doesn't volunteer his help.

"To know the oneself is to know the world around you." Marius says. They're on the banks of the Samegawa, watching the sun sink slowly towards the horizon. Sunlight glints off of the golden buttons of the attendan't uniform. "Margaret wishes only for you to strengthen your mind. To hone your skills. She means well."

"Did you know this Elizabeth person?" Souji asks, absently running through the personae he's got with him today. 

Marius hesitates. "Sometimes, I get a feeling of ... wrongness. Something I can't quite explain. Like I'm dreaming, and I'm forgetting something important. Or that I need to wake up, even though I can't."

He gazes out over the surface of the river, seemingly staring into the sun. "Sometimes, I think I see people at the edges of my sight but when I try to look at them, I can never remember their faces."

.

"I think I understand now."

Marius cants his head to the side; Souji recognises it as a cue to continue.

"What you were talking about a while back. Feeling like you're dreaming. Or forgetting something very important."

It's a week after the culture festival. Souji can't shake the feeling that there's something wrong. Something wrong with his memory, which feeds him hazy, indistinct images of people he doesn't know when he's sleeping. When he tries to pursue them, all he catches are glimpses; fleeting snatches of conversations and jumbled images that make no sense. 

"I feel like ... like we know each other," he says without thinking.

Marius pauses midway through unwrapping a burger. Impressive. Just minutes ago, he'd been demonstrating an ability to shovel copious amounts of hot takoyaki into his mouth at a blistering pace. "I should hope so. I've been assisting you for quite a while now."

"No! No, that's not what I meant," Souji says, annoyed. "I mean ... I feel like we know each other from elsewhere. You were ... different. Surrounded by people."

As is his habit, the attendant ignores him. "I had a friend," he says, absently taking a bite from his burger. "Who asked me how you were supposed to eat these." 

Souji looks up at the sound of his voice. "You're remembering things, then?"

Marius pushes the burger away. "I," he begins and swallows, worrying at the edge of the wrapper. "I wish I didn't."

.

The next weekend, Marius asks Souji to take him out again.

"Where do you want to go?"

"Anywhere. I don't care."

After some deliberation, Souji takes him home; Dojima's got errands to run and he feels like Nanako would appreciate more company. That, and it doesn't feel right taking Marius to Junes again; especially not after he singlehandedly ate nearly everything the food court had to offer in one afternoon. To add insult to injury, he'd asked Souji to take him to Aiya's right after, eaten a bowl of ramen, and filched Souji's eggs -- all while Souji was looking.

"Taking me to see your home already?" Marius says with an expression Souji approximates as a smirk. "I'm honoured."

"... shut up," Souji replies.

Marius and Nanako watch Tanaka's show while Souji sets the table; when he glances over, Marius has a curious expression on his face -- something midway through a scowl and a strange, lopsided smile.

"What's so funny?"

"The song. It's annoying."

"Catchy, isn't it?"

Marius shrugs. " _Hideously_  catchy," he concedes.

"I like it," Souji says. "It's cheery. Puts me in the mood to buy things."

"You shouldn't. Tanaka's an eccentric and half his wares are duds."

"And how would you know?"

Marius frowns, in the same, troubled way he does when Souji presses him for details about his life. Or his existence, whichever makes more sense. Souji decides to change the topic.

"How's the food?"

The attendant looks relieved at the segue into safer ground. "Good. You're a good cook."

"Next time, I'll cook for you again. You're pretty high-maintenance, you know that? You're eating me into poverty here. I can't afford to keep buying you food."

Marius laughs; for the first time, there's genuine mirth. "I'll hold you to it."

.

November rolls around. Souji has no time for anything. No time for anything, save for rescuing Nanako.

He knows he's being reckless. Erratic. He can see it in everybody's eyes. They're too polite to say anything because he's the leader, so he just keeps on pushing as hard as he can.

"You need to stop." Marius' quiet voice cuts through Souji's fugue. He blinks blearily, and realises he's come to a halt several feet before the Velvet Room door. What was he doing ... ? Oh, yes. He was supposed to be fusing personae. 

Souji takes a deep breath, and snarls, "I can't" through gritted teeth. 

"I'm saying this as your attendant," Marius says calmly. 

Souji doesn't know when he does it; only that he's taken a step towards the attendant and grabbed him by the lapels.

Marius gazes evenly up at him. "You forget yourself. Nothing good will arise from being hasty." Here, his voice softens; he lifts a hand and curls his fingers around Souji's, firmly easing his grip. "Go home. Rest. You will return tomorrow, and you will move forward."

Souji's anger dissipates as quickly as it flares. "... you're right. Sorry." And he feels so, so tired. He slumps, hands dropping to his sides. Marius' hand brushes against the back of his head. 

"It's fine," Marius says as he runs his fingers through Souji's hair. The motion, the cadence of his voice -- it's almost gentle. "You'll be fine."

.

_Winter._

Christmas Eve is a quiet affair. Or at least, Souji intends it to be. It would have been, had he not made a detour to the Velvet Room on a whim and brought Marius out.

Marius is silent throughout the walk home. He tilts his head up, blinking as snow settles on his hair. "You could have had your pick of companions to keep you cosy, and you chose me." Blunt and to the point. "Why?"

"Because everything's over, isn't it? My journey. My contract. We found the truth and the culprit." Souji turns the collar of his coat up against his neck, shivering as his breath fogs out before him. "I probably don't have much time until I have to give up the Velvet Key."

"So this is your way of saying farewell."

Souji tilts his head away. Saying it would really be sealing it, after all.

"I was hoping for a send-off dinner at least."

"I can't believe you're joking about food when I'm trying to be serious about this."

"I'm serious too."

They stop at the front of the house. Souji opens the door with exaggerated care and says, "welcome to the Dojima residence." Then, "may I take your coat?"

"Sure," Marius says; he removes and folds it, before placing it in Souji's hands. Souji frowns. "I was joking."

"It's hard to tell."

They're silent as they make their way to his room. A stair squeaks under Souji's foot. While he opens the door and turns on the light, Marius makes himself comfortable on the sofa.

"You know, I'm glad you brought me here."

Something in Marius' voice makes Souji turn around. Marius gazes out through the window, hands loosely folded on his lap.

"I was planning on making this a request of you the next time you came."

"Why?"

"Those requests I made of you -- I wanted to see your world. I'm not sure why. It's not as if I don't already know about it myself." A shrug. "I suppose ... I wanted to see if it was worth it."

"Worth what?"

"Worth something. A great sacrifice, I think."

"And was it?"

Marius shrugs in a way Souji has come to associate with him evading questions. He works his gloves off his hands, before folding and placing them on the table. "I got to experience your life. To see and feel for myself, the kind of life you were living. Someone once told me ... that those residing in the Velvet Room wait with great anticipation for guests. Their arrival gives us our only link to the outside world, which, in turn, gives us reason to be."

"So ... have you found it?"

"I guess."

Souji hesitates, then leans closer. Marius does not pull away.

"Where will you go, then?" Whispered against Marius' jaw. Marius turns his head and kisses Souji, before pulling away.

"Back."

"Don't." Souji says. Marius' breath hitches as Souji loosens the ribbon around his neck and unbuttons his shirt. He tilts his head back as Souji kisses his jaw, his throat, the curve from neck to shoulder. Marius palms Souji through his pants and Souji hisses out a breath, rutting against his fingers.

Marius moves slowly, methodically; like he's done it many times before. And Souji, Souji doesn't understand why he's taking his time because they don't have any, damn it. He doesn't understand why; just he has to make the most of whatever time they have left. 

Souji tenses when Marius enters him and they hold themselves still for several seconds. Marius rests his forehead between Souji's shoulderblades, one hand working Souji's cock with swift, deliberate strokes. Souji breathes in through his nose, then out, says something that vaguely sounds like  _hurry_. Marius doesn't respond, but he starts to move, slowly at first, then faster, purposeful. 

For now, Souji thinks, maybe he can just forget himself. Forget everything else as his thoughts grow disoriented and concerned only with feeling, with touching and experiencing. He's vaguely aware of Marius' teeth against his shoulder, of his own hand around Marius' as he strokes his dick, of Marius' hips against his. He closes his eyes, trying to memorise what he can of this; of everything around him. The ticking of his clock. His pulse thundering in his ears. The thin, unbroken trail of scars snaking up Marius' wrists and arms.

The last one makes him look away. Sacrifice, Marius had said. 

.

"Do you know who you are?" Marius asks him.

Souji's been expecting many different things when Marius tells him of a last request. This isn't one of them. 

The final level of Magatsu Inaba is as he remembers it. Marius stands at the centre of the rocky outcrop with his back to Souji, hands in his pockets. His uniform looks almost black in the gloom. Clouds of azure butterflies flit past from behind Souji, gathering around the attendant.

"I'm ..." Souji struggles, at a loss. It feels like a trick question. "I'm me, I guess."

"What defines you? Your existence? Is it your name? Those around you? Is it the duties you are meant to fulfil?"

Souji doesn't reply. 

"Those that set foot in the Velvet Room are destined to embark on a search for identity." Here, Marius turns; the butterflies coalesce into objects Souji's familiar with. A sword. A gun. "Someone once asked me to fight her, so she could discover the truth of her own existence."

"Is that what you called me here for?"

"Maybe." Marius raises the gun and aims it at Souji. Souji adjusts his grip on his sword and raises it slowly. "Will you do me the honour of fighting me?"

Souji knows where this is going; that this isn't about identity. It's about endings. He forces a smile, and says, "the pleasure is all mine."

Marius' smile is answer enough. He tilts the gun, and points it at the side of his head.

.

Souji's never fought anything -- anyone -- like this before.

Marius uses personae Souji's familiar with; personae he's helped Souji fuse over the course of the year. Cu Chulainn. Sigfried. Thor. Parvati. There are others, too, ones he does not recognise. Orpheus. Messiah. Thanatos. 

It's the manner in which they're used that's different.

The magic used is different from the ones he knows. Marius levels the gun at himself and pulls the trigger; two personae shimmer faintly beside him, and he whispers the skills almost to himself. Ardhanari. Shadow Hound. Scarlet Havoc. Thunder Call. Souji struggles to keep up, struggles to find a pattern, a gap in the relentless attack.

"Forget about the past year. About everything," Marius says as Souji braces himself with his sword. "Forget about our time together. Fight me as though you aim to kill."

"I can't--" Souji coughs and wipes his hand across his face. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees his palm come away bloody. "I can't. I won't. This ... this is how you'll leave, won't you?"

"I was never supposed to be here. I should've gone back a long time ago. But ... I didn't want to. I wanted to see the world again. To live."

"You don't have to--"

Marius smiles faintly, a faraway look in his eyes. Souji knows the expression well; it's the same he gets when he switches a persona. The momentary fragmenting of thoughts. The twinge at the back of his mind. He blinks instinctively, eyes watering.

"This battle ... from the outset, I never planned to let you win. You know why."

Marius tilts his head back and closes his eyes. This time, his right hand shakes; he uses his left to steady his grip.

There's a roaring in Souji's ears. Two figures shimmer alongside Marius. Vishnu and Ananta. He evokes again as Souji drops his sword and lunges towards him. This time, Souji numbly registers which personae he's looking at. Helel and Satan.

"I can't have you changing my mind," Marius says as light flares, brilliant and white-hot at the edge of Souji's vision.

.

'Well fought. You're pretty strong."

He regains consciousness slowly, confused at what he remembers. The red-black skies of Magatsu Inaba. Marius' eyes, eerily blue in the dim light. The sound of breaking glass.

Souji's eyes snap open. Marius gazes at him, unsmiling. Souji glances down, and finds Marius' coat draped over him.

"So, do you know who you are? Who  _I_  am?" Every word is an effort. Souji tries to get up, but Marius holds him down. 

Marius is silent as he spins his gun over and over in his palm, then raises it to his head. Souji narrows his eyes against the glow of an emerging persona. Unlike the others, he recognises this one, if only in name, because he has one like it too -- just not quite the same.  _Isis_. 

The magic washes over him, soothes him. The pain doesn't recede entirely, but at least now he doesn't feel like he's on his deathbed. 

"Minato," Marius says at last. "That's who I was. Who I am."

"And what about me?"

Marius -- no, Minato. That's his real name. Minato looks oddly at him and laughs, a quiet, subdued sound. "Only you can decide who you are."

"Ah. I thought you'd say something like that."

Souji sits up, Minato's jacket sliding from his shoulders. He catches it before it falls and folds it up neatly, then hands it back. "So, where are you headed now?" he asks again, like he's done before. As though each time, maybe, the answer will change.

It doesn't. "Back," Minato says, hands in his pockets, folded jacket slung in the crook of his arm. He's no longer looking at Souji.

And, as before, Souji says, "don't". 

This time, Minato only looks wistful. Souji reaches up and grabs him by his tie and pulls him down. Minato moves without resistance and shuts his eyes as Souji kisses him. Then pulls away and straightens, expression unreadable.

"Either way, I'm glad we met again," he says and that sense of  _wrongness_  flares again at the back of Souji's mind. He wracks his brain, grasping for ... for what, exactly?

"... take care," Minato says as he turns, footsteps quiet against the asphalt.

"We'll meet again," Souji calls after him. "Someday," he adds, and Minato raises one hand in a lazy wave.

.

"... I had planned to bring her back by force," Margaret says. "But I won't interfere with her any more."

"It must have been painful for you," Souji says. "Seeing ... well, seeing the person your sister gave everything up for."

"Sacrifice begets sacrifice." Margaret picks up the Compendium and shuts it. "But after fighting against you, I understand why Elizabeth made the choices she did." Here she smiles faintly. "Were you to lose everything .... your soul will not be isolated. Even if it does happen -- just as Elizabeth did for him, I shall do for you."

.

When he returns during Golden Week, there's a newcomer in the Velvet Room. 

She has pale hair, amber eyes. Another of Margaret's kin, he presumes.

"I am Elizabeth," she says. "And I would like to thank you for ... for looking after my guest this past year."

"I thought you didn't wish to return," Souji says without thinking.

Here, Elizabeth almost seems to pout. "You are correct. I didn't. However, there are some whose wishes I have no choice but to honour." She studiously avoids Margaret's eyes as she speaks. "An alternate means will have to be found."

"I see."

"I won't stop trying, of course," Elizabeth says. "And if my own prestigious power proves to be insufficient, I will combine it with those who have also bonded with my guest."

Souji's hand clenches around the Velvet Key. "Well," he says as he stands to leave. "When that happens, you know where to find me."

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so. I've been sitting on the desire to write Velvet Room!P3 protags for years. _Years_. Years. 
> 
> Persona Q's release only rekindled my burning love for P3, as well as ... my shameful hidden beast that is Protagshipping. The only thing stopping me from writing this fic earlier was, a) lack of co-conspirators with which to share my guilty, makes-no-sense-in-the-grand-canon-scheme-of-things ship, and b) I had no idea how to make this scenario work. Alas -- the inception of ideas isn't my strength; I can only execute to the best of my ability.
> 
> Thus, I'd like to extend my greatest thanks to my good friend [Annette](http://mohshuvuu.tumblr.com) for helping me with issues (a) and (b)! I'm so glad I converted someone to my guilty ship. So glad.


End file.
